Minecraft: Mob Squad: Never Say Nether: An Official Minecraft Novel

So here’s what you need to know: My name is Mal, I live on my parents’ cow farm but I prefer working in my mine, I love my friends more than anything, and I have an adventurer’s heart. After yesterday’s discussion about a possible mission to the woodland mansion, I can’t stop daydreaming about what it would feel like to walk out the gate and into the big, wide Overworld on another grand quest. Sure, I spend less time with the cows these days and more time on my own, mining a small plot of land in our back pasture, where I have a knack for finding rare ores, but my parents still count on me. Thanks to a dangerous potion, I nearly died the last time I went on an adventure, so it’s no wonder they want to keep me close and safe.

But still, I can’t help staring at the mountains and thinking about llamas and wondering what else there might be out there, what else I might be missing. The Elders may have opened up our town, but there are still rules, and I still feel pressure to be a good daughter, a good kid, a good cowherd.

I’m milking Henrietta when Chug bursts into the barn looking terrified, which is not normal for him. Chug will mouth off against the biggest bully in town, he’ll run right at a zombie while throwing insults, and on our last adventure, he even stood up to adult brigands with swords who stole our llamas and loot and tried to steal his pet pig, so the fact that he’s frantic and fighting tears definitely has my attention.

“Chug, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Tok,” he says, breathless. “He’s gone.”

My mind is immediately hunting for the answer. “Maybe he went into town for ingredients?”

“None of the shops are open yet. I don’t even think Elder Gabe is awake. I banged on his door for ten minutes. So his neighbors are awake now, I guess.”

“Maybe he went to visit Nan, check her library again for something he missed?”

Chug’s brow rumples. “That’s a good idea. Let’s go check there.”

I leave the bucket of milk by the barn door and follow Chug as he runs down the road that leads back to the Hub. It’s a cloudy day, and the air is thick with the promise of rain. As we get closer, I notice that several adults are standing in the street, looking angry and confused, our town Elders among them. Elder Gabe stands in front of the open door of his potions shop, shaking the walking stick in his gnarled fist and shouting, “Thief! Thief!”

“Elder Gabe, what’s going on?” I ask as we slow down, because I know that I’ll get better results than Chug. When he’s upset, he has even less of a filter than usual.

“I’ve been robbed!” Elder Gabe squeaks, shaking his stick at me. “Someone broke into my shop and stole everything! Every potion! All my ingredients! I’m finished! We’re all finished! The town is helpless and doomed!” His beady little eyes narrow on Chug. “Speaking of which, where’s your brother?”

Chug’s jaw drops. “Are you accusing Tok of stealing?”

“I’m considering all possibilities. Where is he?”

Chug deflates. “I don’t know. I woke up, and he was missing.”

“Aha!” Gabe cries. “So he is the thief!”

Uh-oh. I step in front of Chug before he goes on autopilot and punches one of our town leaders in the nose.

“Tok wouldn’t steal,” I say, hands up. “Ask anyone. He’s never stolen anything.”

“It just adds up.” Gabe shakes his head. “The only person in town who constantly begs me for potion ingredients and recipes disappears on the day my shop is burgled, and if you ask me, there’s really only one answer.”

“I can think of another answer,” Chug says, hands in fists.

Before I have to restrain him, we’re interrupted by one of my least favorite people in town: Jarro’s mother, Dawna. She bursts out of her gate, flailing, wearing a pink bathrobe and curlers.

“Help! Help!” she screeches, waving her arms. “There’s been a crime!”

She runs up to the eldest Elder, Elder Stu, and when Elder Gabe joins them, we follow along.

“What’s the problem?” Elder Stu asks.

“I need to know what you’re going to do about the crime in this town!”

It’s barely dawn, and Elder Stu already looks exhausted. Then again, most people do after dealing with Dawna or her son, Jarro. “We didn’t have any crime until today. What happened?”

Dawna takes a big breath. “I woke up, and all my sweet berry bushes were gone! All of them! And when I went to ask Jarro if he’d heard anything, he was gone, too!”

I definitely notice that she mentions the missing bushes before the missing kid.

Elder Stu and Elder Gabe exchange a glance. “So we’ve got two missing boys, missing sweet berries, and missing potions.”

“Who else is missing?” Dawna squawks.

“My brother,” Chug breaks in.

Dawna looks at him like he’s a talking pig. “There you go! I knew it was one of you Bad Apples, always making trouble around town! That little pyromaniac kidnapped my son and stole my berries! I demand you put this one in jail right now.”

Chug can’t stand Dawna, and he hates being blamed for things he didn’t do, and he really hates it when Dawna—or anyone—calls us Bad Apples. We might be different and we might accidentally cause a little trouble here or there, but none of us are bad.

“My brother didn’t steal anything! He never has! He never would! And if he did, he definitely wouldn’t steal your nasty kid, unless it was to feed him to wolves!”

“How dare you!” Dawna shrieks.

“Pretty easily! How dare you?” Chug barks back.

Elder Stu moves between them, which I have to admit is pretty brave.

“Now, now. This is all most unusual. First of all, we need to spread the word, have everyone in town looking for those missing boys. They’re probably hiding somewhere—”

“That’s what you said last time, when we were fighting zombies in a dark forest to save you!” Chug wails.

I clap a hand over his mouth, and Elder Stu nods at me gratefully and continues.

“Nevertheless, we need a hard target search of every farmhouse, henhouse, cowhouse—just all the houses, really. All the structures. There are only so many places to hide in Cornucopia.”

He’s wrong, though. The wall is open, and the town is no longer contained. But I don’t say that. I don’t say anything.

“You have to find my berries! And my boy!” Dawna screeches, as no one has really paid her any attention for a few minutes, and she hates that. “He’s so innocent—”

“Ha!” Chug barks behind my hand.

“What’s going on?” Lenna has appeared beside me, Poppy dancing around our feet. “Nan sent me to get some flour, and all the shops are closed.”

“That’s because everyone is here,” I tell her, still holding Chug’s mouth shut. “Tok and Jarro disappeared last night, and Elder Gabe and Dawna were robbed.”

Chug licks my palm, and I whip my hand off his mouth. “We have to find Tok,” he says before making a face. “Ew. Mal. Ever heard of washing your hands? You taste like cow butt.”

A hand lands on my shoulder. It’s Elder Stu. “You kids go home and tell your parents what happened. Look over every inch of your farms. That’s how you can help—by staying put and doing what you’re told.” His face, somehow, manages to look even more stern than usual. “And tell your parents to lock up any healing potions they might have on hand. With Elder Gabe’s potions and ingredients gone, we’re all in grave danger. If anyone gets hurt…” He shakes his head. “You kids just be extra careful, okay? No climbing trees, no riding cows. No shenanigans!”

Chug is about to say something snarky, but I grab his arm and yank him away. “Yes, Elder Stu. Will do,” I call over my shoulder. Lenna follows me as I lead my friends away from Dawna’s hysterics and the Elders’ annoyance—and worry. It feels off, not having Tok with us, like a table missing a leg.

“Tok wouldn’t hide out with Jarro,” Chug growls. “If anything, Jarro kidnapped him. He’s probably torturing him! He’s—”

“He’s too stupid to even think about doing that,” I remind him. “Jarro’s never even been outside the city walls. There’s no way he could find your house, much less steal Tok out of his bed.”

“The cats would’ve let you know if Jarro was around,” Lenna adds. “Candor hates him.”

“And look at Remy and Edd.” I point at the two kids fidgeting across the street. “Jarro’s toadies don’t look like they’re in on a joke—they look worried.”

And they do. Like Jarro, they’re not very smart, and they’re not good actors. They generally have two modes—bully and run—but now they’re skulking around, uncertain what to do without their leader.

Elder Gabe gives us a harsh look for continuing to exist in his presence, and I say, “C’mon,” and lead Chug and Lenna down the road. “Let’s go look for clues in Tok’s workshop.” If I know Chug, and I know Chug better than anyone other than his own brother, he probably didn’t look around very well before running to my house. He’s got a ton of great qualities—he’s loyal, he’s funny, he’s a great cook, he’s a great fighter, he’s a great friend—but he’s not big on attention to detail.

When we get to New Cornucopia, everything looks normal. There are a few small family farms out here, mostly younger families who got sick of how crowded things were getting inside the walls. There are a couple of shops along the main drag, including a bakery and a farm stand, but no one is freaking out like the folks in the Hub. Chug puts Thingy back in his little paddock, and I pause at the fence to scratch the adorable pig behind his ears. “Okay, so we all agree that there’s no way Tok would just get up and leave on his own, not without telling us, right?” Chug and Lenna nod emphatically. “Then we just need to figure out what happened. Thingy didn’t squeal, and the cats didn’t meow, right?” I ask Chug.

His head hangs. “I sleep pretty hard. You know that.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lenna says. She reaches under the fence and pulls the feathery green end of a carrot out of the mud. It’s not the only one. “Looks like someone kept Thingy busy last night.”

Chug turns red. “ARE YOU TELLING ME SOMEONE MADE THINGY INTO AN ACCOMPLICE?” he howls.

Thingy oinks indignantly, and Chug scratches his back. “It’s not your fault,” he croons. “The carrots were just too good.”

Lenna walks under the awning where Tok does most of his work and pokes at something in the dirt. “And here. Fish bones—to keep the cats quiet.” She looks up, troubled. “Whoever took Tok knew what they were doing.”

Chug drops to the ground on his rump, his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I let this happen. I should’ve protected him. I was right there, just a few feet away! Why didn’t I wake up? He’s got to be so scared—”

I sit next to him and lean against him. “There’s no way you could’ve known. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

When Chug looks up, his eyes shine fiercely. “It’s still our fault, though. We’re the reason the wall is open. We live outside it. Before, we knew everybody in town. There were only so many suspects. But now, anyone could’ve snuck in here. Anyone could’ve taken my brother.”

Lenna sits on the other side of him—sometimes Chug needs to be grounded. “It’s not our fault. It’s the fault of whoever did the bad thing.” Tok’s cats appear and butt their heads against Chug’s leg, and Poppy whines softly and creeps forward to lick his cheek.

Chug sighs and sags against me. “Maybe that makes sense to my mind, but my heart doesn’t buy it.”

He sniffles and snuffles, and Lenna and I lean into him as he cries. Chug’s a tough guy, but he’s got a big heart, and his brother means the world to him. He means a lot to me, too. We’ve all been best friends forever. Maybe I’m an only child, but Tok is family.

“So we have to find him,” I say. “The adults are going to look in barns and under tables, and they’re going to assume it’s just kids being kids, like they did last time.”

“Like they always do.” Lenna sighs.

“And that means it’s up to us. We’ve already found two clues. Maybe we’ll find more.” I stand and pull Chug and Lenna up, too. “Come on. No more sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, bud. We’ve got to take action.”

Chug looks around the workshop and exhales. “Yeah, probably better to do something than nothing. Should we gear up?”

“For what?” Lenna asks.

“I don’t know! I just know that I always feel better when my pockets are stuffed with weapons and food. Someone took my brother, and I want to be ready to take him back, even if that involves a fight.”

Now a man on a mission, Chug heads into his house, and we follow. He opens a chest and pulls out his old diamond-and-gold armor from our last expedition, plus his sword.

“Chug, that gold armor is basically useless,” I say.

“Yeah, but it looks sick. And we don’t have enough diamond for everybody.”

When he takes out a saddle, I give him an odd look.

“In case someone gets hurt and needs to ride Thingy again,” he explains. “I’ve been training him, you know. He can back up now.”

He offers me a pickaxe, but I grin and pull my diamond pickaxe out of my pocket. “I’m kind of attached to this one. It makes me feel like my great-great-great-grandmother is always with me, you know?”

Lenna reaches into her own pocket and pulls out two of Nan’s cookies. “I have a little food, but we should probably bring some more. And I always have my books and my bow and arrows.”

Soon we’re all loaded up with food for us and some potatoes for Thingy, who Chug simply can’t leave behind—not with Tok gone. We lock Candor and Clarity inside the shop; even if they keep creepers away, Chug would never forgive himself if something happened to Tok’s cats because of him. We’re not wearing our armor yet or wielding our weapons, because if anyone in town sees us kitted out for adventure, they’ll surely go tell the Elders, and then they’ll probably close up the wall again just to keep us from disobeying them. But when it’s time to head out, we all just kind of…stand there.

“Which way do we think they went?” Chug asks.

“Away from the wall,” Lenna murmurs.

I fetch the carrot nubbin Lenna found in Thingy’s paddock and hold it out to Poppy. “Do you think she could track whoever held this carrot? Can she smell that well?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried something like that.” Lenna takes the bit of carrot and rubs it over Poppy’s nose. “Poppy, find whoever touched this,” she says.

Poppy licks her hand and wiggles excitedly.

“Oh,” Lenna says, disappointed. “I guess I’m the last one who touched it.”

Beyond the boys’ house and shop and the single road of New Cornucopia, the Overworld spreads out just as big and wide and wild as the first day we saw it through Nan’s secret window. The mountains rise, far out, jagged gray peaks topped with snow. Somewhere in that direction lie a beacon and a village, and beyond that a river and a dark forest. Since that last treacherous journey, we haven’t gone farther than the bounds of New Cornucopia. We’ve played it safe, followed the rules laid out by our Elders and reinforced by our parents.

We’ve been good. We’ve done our chores and our jobs.

The whole world is out there, and we’ve been content enough to gaze at it.

Until now.

Now we have to go back out, even if we’re not supposed to.

The last time we left, we saved our town.

This time, we have to save our friend.

“I guess we’re ready,” Chug says. He opens the gate to Thingy’s paddock, and the pig trots out and dances around, oinking excitedly. “You’ve been feeling a little cooped up, too, haven’t you, buddy?” Almost as an aside, he tells Lenna and me, “He likes to get into Dav’s potato fields, so I have to save him from himself.”

As if on cue, Thingy squeals and darts ahead, out of Chug’s reach. But he doesn’t go for the potatoes invitingly growing in rows next door.

He finds something on the ground and munches it delightedly.

“Hey, what is that?” Chug calls. “Are you eating garbage again, you naughty boy?”

He hurries to the pig and tries to pry open its mouth, but Thingy shakes him off and darts ahead again, plucking something from the dirt and slurping it up.

“What’s he eating?” I ask as we hurry along behind him.

“I don’t know, but his mouth is all red and sticky.” Chug gasps. “Is it blood? Is it Tok’s blood? Thingy, are you some kind of bloodthirsty monster? I know some people actually—ugh—eat pigs, but I didn’t know pigs could eat people—”

But Lenna holds up a red-daubed finger from where she kneels on the ground. “It’s sweet berries,” she says.

As Thingy rushes ahead yet again, Chug worriedly trailing in his wake, I grin.

“It’s a trail of Dawna’s stolen sweet berries,” I say. “And I bet whoever took Tok is dropping them.”